巨髎 Juliao
“Great Bone-Hollow” · ST3
Foot Yangming · 3 of 45 · crossing-point
Where. Straight below the pupil, level with the bottom of the nostril, just outside the smile line.
For. Toothache, nosebleed, a puffy cheek.
Press. Gentle fingertip pressure, about a minute each side.
在俠鼻孔旁八分，直瞳子按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Juliao Sits on the Mid-Cheek
The dataset places Juliao on the face, directly below the pupil, level with the lower border of the nasal ala, lateral to the nasolabial groove. Translated into everyday anatomy, that is a precise little address. The alae are the soft, flared wings of the nose — the rounded rims that move when you flare your nostrils — and their lower border is simply the bottommost curve of each wing. The nasolabial groove is the familiar smile crease running from the flank of each nostril down toward the corner of the mouth; lateral to it means on the cheek side, just outside the crease. Directly below the pupil describes a plumb line: with the gaze resting naturally forward, drop an imaginary weight from the centre of the eye straight down the cheek. Where that vertical meets the height of the wing’s bottom rim, eased a small step off the crease, the record locates this point.
It is worth pausing over how exposed this address is. The face carries almost no padding: skin lies close over thin facial muscle, and beneath the muscle sits the plate of the upper jaw and cheekbone. The mid-cheek is also rarely still — smiling, speaking, blinking all tug at the tissue here — so whatever you practice on this spot should move with it rather than against it. Everything about the site invites a light hand. The tissue responds to the gentlest intention, and pressing hard buys nothing except soreness in a place everyone can see. Face points in general reward patience over power; a point set in working muscle, threaded by crossing lines as this one is recorded to be, rewards patience twice over.
Juliao is symmetrical: one point on each cheek, mirrored across the midline. Locating them as a pair helps accuracy, because the two sides should feel alike, and any obvious difference usually means a fingertip has drifted. The pupil line also hosts a quiet ladder of Stomach-channel neighbours. The catalogue places Sibai (ST2) directly below the pupil in the small depression near the lower rim of the eye socket, Juliao holding the middle rung at wing-bottom height, and Dicang (ST4) directly below the pupil out by the corner of the mouth. Three points, one vertical thread. Notice, finally, what the dataset does not supply: distance figures. None are needed — pupil line, wing bottom, and smile crease are landmarks unmistakable once seen.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Begin with clean hands and a well-lit mirror, seated comfortably with elbows resting on a table so the arms stay steady. Let the gaze rest naturally forward. Choose the side you will work first and trace a slow vertical line downward from the centre of that pupil, across the cheek. With the other hand, find the bottom rim of the nose wing and hold its lowest curve in mind. Now bring the searching fingertip to the cheek at exactly that height and glide a short step outward — off the smile crease, onto the shallow flat where the crease gives way to the smooth of the cheek. Settle the pad there: that plateau, level with the underside of the wing and just lateral to the groove, is the spot the dataset describes.
A few confirmations help before any real pressing begins. Smile gently and check that the crease deepens beside the fingertip while the pad itself stays on the flat just outside it — that relationship of crease and pad is the heart of the location. Compare sides with the same feather-light touch: many people notice a faint, dull awareness or mild tenderness at the true point and almost nothing a finger-width away. Some also feel a subtle change as the lips part slightly, since the point rides above facial muscle that moves with expression. Rest the fingertip still for several slow breaths and simply learn the terrain: springy, mobile skin and muscle, with firm bone waiting underneath.
The classic slips are predictable. The commonest is drifting inward, so the pad ends up inside the nasolabial groove itself rather than beside it. Others climb too high toward the eye socket, where the ground rises toward Sibai, or slide down toward the mouth corner, entering Dicang’s territory. The correction sequence is always the same three beats: find the vertical from the pupil, find the height of the wing’s lowest curve, take one small step off the crease. Because smile creases differ greatly from face to face — deep in some people, faint in others — treat the height cue as the steadier of the two anchors. Whenever you lose the thread, return to the mirror and walk the sequence again, slowly.
Reading the Name: Great Bone-Hollow
The name reads as a piece of geology. Ju 巨 means great or large; liao 髎 denotes a bone hollow — the gaps and voids where bones meet or open beneath the surface — and the character carries the bone radical at its left side. Together, Juliao is conventionally rendered the Great Bone-Hollow, and a whole family of points across the body map shares that second character, each posted over a hollow of its own. Classical readers connected the name with the fuller architecture of the mid-cheek, where facial muscle glides across the openings and recesses of the upper jaw — an account of landscape beneath the skin, told in two characters.
Position within the channel deepens the story. Classical descriptions draw the Stomach channel surfacing on the face in the region beneath the eye, then descending through cheek and jaw before continuing down the front of the trunk and leg to finish at the second toe — a long fall from face to toe, and Juliao stands on its third recorded step of forty-five. The catalogue also records the point as a crossing-point: classical accounts describe further channel lines converging around this part of the cheek. A junction on a busy descending route gave the tradition ample reason to attend to this small stretch of cheek.
Pinyin writes the name Jùliáo, with a falling fourth tone on ju and a rising second tone on liao. The hanzi pair 巨髎 memorises at a glance. Where garden names invite you to picture greenery, geological names invite you to picture structure — and the picture does explanatory work. It says the tradition read this spot as a feature of terrain: a hollow worth knowing precisely because bone waits close beneath working muscle. Like many channel names — gates, valleys, courtyards, storehouses, hollows — it is less a label than a set of instructions: come here quietly, feel for the shape of the ground, and do not mistake a soft dip for emptiness.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: deviation of the corner of the mouth, nosebleed, toothache, and swelling of the lips and cheek. Read as tradition rather than promise, the list sketches a coherent portrait of the mid-face. First comes deviation of the corner of the mouth — the pulling of the features to one side described in classical records. Points where the facial channels cross belonged squarely to traditional discussions of such drawings, and a catalogue-recorded crossing-point on the cheek sat naturally among them. Nosebleed follows: the old records filed bleeding from the nose among nasal disharmonies, and a point posted on the channel’s facial course was a natural address in those discussions.
The last two entries turn to the mouth and its frame. Toothache needs little introduction, and points in the cheek-and-jaw neighbourhood figure throughout the traditional literature on dental discomfort — a spot level with the teeth-bearing jaw and threaded by crossing lines belonged in those conversations. Swelling of the lips and cheek rounds out the list: in traditional reading, local swelling around the mouth was treated as an outward sign of qi and fluids not moving freely, a stagnation image the classics returned to often. These are historical frameworks for understanding the body, documented here for context rather than prescription.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats any condition, and nothing here replaces assessment by a qualified clinician. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure on the face at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence specific to any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition lightly, and hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With both points located, set up comfortably: seated, elbows supported, shoulders released, hands freshly washed — the fingertips will be working on visible skin, so cleanliness is part of the technique. Rest a fingertip pad on one point, begin with contact alone for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than dragging against it. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or gentle warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to two minutes per side, once or twice daily, paired with slow, easy breathing so each circle rides a calm exhale. Repeat on the other side and keep the sessions matched.
Quality matters far more than intensity here. Light, patient, regular contact fits the wellness register this page practises; hard grinding pressure only leaves the mid-face sore and teaches nothing — and the mid-cheek, remember, is muscle that works every time you speak or smile, so practising on a relaxed face keeps the tissue honest. Many people fold the practice into moments the day already provides — washing the face in the morning, an afternoon pause at a window, the wind-down before bed — because consistency, not force, is what self-care traditions actually ask for. Treat any urge to add pressure as information, not instruction.
Treat the exercise as a minute of attention, not a treatment session. Notice what changes across days: perhaps the area feels less tight while you press, perhaps the face settles as the pace slows, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spent ninety seconds caring for your own cheeks. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder, longer, or probing toward the eye or the mouth to force a result. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness or stop for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point’s licensed record carries a notable fact honestly stated: the dataset attaches no special caution to Juliao. Unlike certain neighbours — points beside the eye, or over the chest, whose records open with explicit warnings — this mid-cheek site asks no unusual professional handling of the structures beneath it. But an empty caution field is not an invitation to force; it is simply a statement of the record. Every face point inherits the same universal disciplines, and they apply with full strength here, on thin skin over bone, in the middle of a face that talks and smiles all day long.
The housekeeping rules are simple. Work with clean hands, pads rather than nails, on intact skin only: skip the point over cuts, pimples, cold sores, sunburn, eczema patches, or any broken or irritated skin, and pause entirely during an active nosebleed. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation. Anyone who is pregnant, or living with a recent facial procedure, dental treatment in progress, or an active skin condition, should ask a qualified practitioner before adding new point practice. And keep the pressure gentle enough that it could continue indefinitely without fatigue — if your hand tires, the pressure is already too strong.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt clinical assessment — not more pressing — for recurring or heavy nosebleeds, facial pain or swelling, a toothache persisting beyond a day or two or arriving with fever, or any symptom that worries you. Dental complaints in particular belong with a dentist sooner rather than later. Persistent concerns belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the matter. The Great Bone-Hollow makes a fine study in reading terrain; knowing when to leave the terrain for the clinic is the wiser half of wellness.
Juliao, the Great Bone-Hollow, is the third stop on the Stomach channel’s journey down the face: directly below the pupil, level with the lower border of the nasal ala, just outside the nasolabial groove. Classical practice reached for it when the corner of the mouth pulled askew, when the nose bled, or when a tooth ached. This guide covers finding it by touch and pressing it gently.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Juliao without any measuring?
- Use the pupil and the nose as your whole map. Look naturally forward, drop a mental vertical line from the centre of the pupil down the cheek, and find the lowest curve of the nose wing. Bring your fingertip to the cheek at that height, then take one small step sideways off the smile crease onto the smooth of the cheek. That spot — level with the underside of the wing, just lateral to the groove — is the location the dataset describes, no tape measure required.
- Is pressing the mid-cheek safe?
- Gentle fingertip contact on intact skin is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, and the licensed record attaches no special caution to this particular point. The disciplines that remain are universal ones: clean hands, pads rather than nails, nothing over pimples, cold sores, or broken skin, and nothing during a nosebleed. Sharp, electric, or spreading sensation means stop immediately. Anyone who is pregnant, or has recently had facial or dental procedures, should ask a qualified practitioner first.
- What did classical practice use Juliao for?
- The traditional record lists deviation of the corner of the mouth, nosebleed, toothache, and swelling of the lips and cheek. The catalogue also records the point as a crossing-point, which placed it naturally in classical discussions of facial complaints — the features, the nose, and the jaw all sit within its recorded portfolio. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for cultural context, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why do three Stomach-channel points stack along the pupil line?
- Because classical theory draws the Stomach channel surfacing on the face beneath the eye and descending through cheek and jaw on its long journey toward the second toe. Its second, third, and fourth points — Sibai by the lower rim of the eye socket, Juliao at wing-bottom height, and Dicang by the corner of the mouth — all sit directly below the pupil, so the channel’s descending facial course writes itself as a vertical ladder of landmarks. Juliao holds the middle rung.
- Can acupressure here replace the dentist for a toothache?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool, and a toothache that persists beyond a day or two, worsens, or arrives with fever or facial swelling needs professional assessment promptly — usually a dentist’s, soon. Think of daily gentle practice and clinical care as different floors of the same building: downstairs lives everyday self-care, upstairs is the consulting room you visit when symptoms persist. Neither substitutes for the other.
Sources
- 01aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for ST3 Juliao — location, point class, actions, and caution record.
- 02WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
- 03A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition and channel-course context.
Last reviewed
牌記This leaf, for machines
Old books ended with a colophon saying who printed them. Every leaf here carries the same facts as structured data for agents and search, with no layout in the way.
- GET /en/points/st3/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/st3/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/st3/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "ST3",
"name": {
"en": "Juliao",
"gloss": "Great Bone-Hollow",
"zh-Hant": "巨髎",
"zh-Hans": "巨髎"
},
"channel": {
"id": "ST",
"order": 3,
"of": 45
},
"location": {
"text": "Straight below the pupil, level with the bottom of the nostril, just outside the smile line."
},
"for": [
"toothache",
"nosebleed",
"a puffy cheek"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle fingertip pressure, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/st3",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}